Web Application Deployment Survey | Hacker News Reader

Web Application Deployment Survey

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27 pointsgarethr9 comments

Curious as to how others deploy .Net software?

We have a pretty streamlined process all the way up to 'put files on production server' which we do by hand. There's too many 'gotchas' with Windows/our environment that I don't feel comfortable using Nant (like we do everywhere up until the final production file push).

Instead of taking this issue on... We're moving to Mono on Linux (well, more correctly we're evaluating moving to Mono) which is worlds nicer for scripting and automating.

Curious as to how others deploy .Net software?

We use a combination of a custom-built tool for deployment of GAC assemblies, and MSDeploy for the site configuration and code. MSDeploy really works well for that stuff, but (at least in the version we've been working with for 2 years) is rather broken for GAC stuff, which forced us to build our own tool for that part of the process.

The only difficult part, I find, is coordinating all of that with changes to the database. It demands discipline in the way we make enhancements, so that DB changes can be deployed first, and thus must be backward compatible allowing the previous version of code to still function properly.

We use customized TFS Build Processes.

Really, working in the Microsoft stack is not something to do halfway - either avoid it like the plague, or embrace it and use all their tools.

done. maybe let me fill in my mail address so we can stay updated about any results?

Made me rethink some of my deployment strategies; mainly I'll just deploy doing a git pull on the server and issuing a graceful apache restart (passenger). db migrations through "rake db:migrate".

Would be interesting to see what others have as deployment strategies.

Thanks. I'd kept off all identifying information as some folks prefer to keep operational information secret. I'm hoping the complete anonymity gets me more filled out questionnaires.

I'll give it a good few weeks, say a month, and then get the results together. I'll post them to my blog (http://morethanseven.net) and I'll post the link on here too.

Agreed.

In fact, if the OP doesn't share results, I'd be happy to fill in a similar form again for anyone who does agree to publish the results. Deployment is one of the biggest pain points in my life and I'd love it if it could be made better. Thanks!

I'll definitely publish the results, including the raw data.

When will you publish the results and where ?

I'll give it a good few weeks, say a month, and then get the results together. It depends on how popular it is, if I'm still seeing results come in and how much time I can grab.

I'll post them to my blog (http://morethanseven.net) and I'll post the link on here too.

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